I have been impressed on many occasions with the inappropriate character of the food ordered by those who take their mid-day repast in the popular restaurant. Young men and women employed in offices, shops, and warehouses, have little to spend on their food when from home, but they appear to take no trouble whatever in selecting what is best for their purpose. A light, nutritious, varied, and yet inexpensive meal is of the highest importance. On the contrary, however, many select sausage, meat-pudding, or pie, or a steak, with a new roll and potato, and finally one of those artistic examples of the pastry-cook's art, which may appeal to the eye and the palate, but which are wholly unsatisfactory. I take a few examples from life, and compare them with much more economical foods selected from the restaurant lists.

Cost, 6d. Providing 111 calories for a penny.

Cost, 11d. Providing 57 Calories for a penny.

Cost 4d., or 250 Calories for a penny.

Cost 6 1/2d., or 150 Calories for a penny.

Example Of A More Economical Meal

Cost, 4 1/2d. to 5d., providing 200 units for 1d. 2 oz. Macaroni are cooked with 1/2 pint milk, 1 oz. raisins, and sugar.

The cost of meat as a regular food not only renders it uneconomical, as the figures which represent its nutritive value suggest, but where those figures are increased by the addition of another article of food, to make a meat meal efficient, the quantity eaten is more than is desirable, and the cost is too great, while the increase in the protein renders it inappropriate for all adults but the muscular worker. In an article in the Daily Mail on April 19, 1915, a physician says: "The prime fault in the diet of well-to-do English people is undoubtedly that it consists too largely of meat, fish, and eggs. Many investigations have been made in recent years on this head, and practically all inquirers concur in the view that far too much meat is eaten, especially by those who lead comparatively inactive lives. To this fact many evil consequences are due. An immense amount of labour is thrown on the kidneys, through which organs the great bulk of the waste products of meat and fish are excreted. These waste products remain long in the blood, as the kidneys cannot keep pace with the work they are burdened with. Circulating through the brain, heart, liver, and every part, they act as mild poisons, causing heaviness, drowsiness, sometimes headache, sallow-ness of the skin, and other minor troubles. Then, towards middle life, the meat-eater's kidneys begin to fail, his heart feels the stress, his liver suffers, and, perhaps worst of all, the arteries of his brain become more or less diseased. Or perhaps he is punished by recurring attacks of gout or rheumatism. This is no exaggerated picture. It applies to a very large number of men and women. But, while eating too much meat, we consume an insufficiency of vegetables for the health of the body."

This is precisely the view that I have advocated in the Daily Mail, the Evening News, and elsewhere, and the whole question at issue could not have been put more concisely or truthfully. It is generally assumed, however, by those who insist on a mixed diet, or a great preponderance of vegetables and fruits, that to young people meat is a necessity as a body builder. I have already shown, on the authority of the most able modern experimenters, that this is not so. It is impossible to be acquainted as I am, with growing children who have never eaten meat; with the fact that the Japanese are non-meat-eaters, that the magnificent Sikhs, with their courage and resolution of character, eat meat only two or three times in a month; and that the Arabs, and other hardy races of men, live chiefly upon figs, dates, bananas, and milk - and to insist that meat is a necessity.

A Typical Meal

An economical and nutritious dinner may consist of a cereal or vegetable soup, potatoes, baked or fried parsnips, salsify, or carrots, and a second vegetable - turnip, cabbage, sprouts, cauliflower, spinach, celery, beetroot, leeks, or onions - a good helping of savoury macaroni, spaghetti, rice, polenta fried in cakes, or buckwheat cakes, and a sweet pudding made with dried fruit, or the addition of jam. The last named may be alternated with fresh fruits in season. These dishes can be prepared in various ways with a little study of modern cookery, and may be supplemented in summer with green beans and peas, or in winter with dried peas, haricot beans, or preserved French beans. Wherever possible lettuce should complete the meal, with a slice of bread-and-butter or soft cheese.

The Japanese Diet

I have referred to the Japanese, who have shown by their rapid advance to the front rank among the great nations of the world that they are possessed alike of remarkable mental and physical energy. Their virility and power, however, has been built almost entirely on a vegetable diet, for by far the larger proportion of the Japanese are vegetarians. The meat and milk produced in Japan is not sufficient to provide a normal European ration once a day for the wealthier class; and, although fish is consumed much more abundantly, it too is insufficient for this purpose. Some years ago an inquiry was made in order to ascertain whether it was possible, by changing the diet, to increase the height of the people, but it was determined that the point was quite immaterial when it was remembered that, as compared with taller races, the Japanese were not only stronger, but capable of greater endurance. Many instances of both these qualities have been published, but one must suffice here. Professor Baeltz,1 formerly physician to the Mikado, describes an instance in which two young men ran with him in a jin-rikisha some twenty-five miles daily for three weeks during warm weather. They consumed abundance of vegetable food - chiefly potatoes, barley, rice, chestnuts, and other materials containing less than two-thirds of the minimum quantity of protein usually prescribed as essential, and very little fat. When these men attempted to do the same work upon a partially meat diet, supplied to them as an experiment, they failed, and abandoned it in consequence. The Japanese soldiers are notorious for their endurance upon a vegetable diet, of which rice forms the leading feature, but they are also great eaters of salads and tomatoes.

1 Hindhede, Protein and Nutrition.

The Continental Peasantry

I have had some experience among the peasantry in the Italian provinces of Lombardy and Emilia, and have noticed there and elsewhere their great muscular strength and endurance. They are practically all vegetarians - their food consisting chiefly of polenta, a product of maize, and rice. The maize plant is indeed, in some parts of Italy, the source of their food and their fuel, while their beds are made with the leaves.

I have repeatedly noticed that in the rural districts of France the diet of the peasants consists almost wholly of vegetables and fruit, and is the produce of their land. The exceptions are milk, soft cheese, fat used for frying their dishes of maize, rice, and buckwheat, and an occasional egg or a rabbit. Meat is not an item of importance among the agricultural labouring classes of the Continent, and in parts of some countries it is almost unknown. On one occasion I spent a day upon a Danish farm which was notorious for its production of butter supplied to the King. I dined with the family and five robust dairymaids, but, with the exception of meat cooked for myself, all fared alike upon rice, potatoes, bread, and butter. Until the advent of Australian mutton and American beef our English labourers lived in a similar way, but with the addition of fat pork, or bacon, the produce of their pigs.